There was something missing in his life. He could feel it, he just didn't know what it was.

He enjoyed his time with Noel, he was proud to be getting back into shape, but he still felt like his life had no meaning. He didn't have any real goal or purpose. He didn't have any reason to be.

It was kind of depressing.

He went for walks, sometimes alone and sometimes with Noel, but that didn't really help. The neighborhood around the gym was grimy, and there wasn't a green space anywhere near it. The concrete and steel seemed to press in on him from all sides, blocking out the sky and trapping him.

On this particular day everything was grey. The buildings, the sky, the trash in the streets, the people who slept amidst the trash in the streets. All of it, without life or color. Even Noel, walking next to him, wore a grey coat.

Sebastian didn't see the point in talking today. He was having trouble seeing the point of anything.

The sound of bells cut through the early morning fog, clamoring for attention. They wandered toward it. For some reason Sebastian felt drawn to it. He wanted to see if the bell was having any success at bringing hope to the people of New York.

The congregation in the church was small. The cushions on the pews were threadbare. The organ was out of tune. The stained glass windows were dull with no sunlight to bring them to life. When the offering plate went around, only a few sweaty crumpled bills decorated the bottom.

Sebastian found a seat in the last row, arms crossed, daring the minister to bring meaning to his life.

In all his thousands of years of life, he had met plenty of people who claimed to be gods. They performed miracles, they gathered followers, they dazzled, they preached, they healed, they raised the dead, they transmuted water into wine and lead into gold, they created codes of conduct, they punished the unbelievers, they claimed to have created the world, they built themselves temples and pyramids and castles and shrines, they put themselves up on pedestals, had their faces painted on walls and vases and carved from stone.

In the end, they all died. Every single one.

If there was a real god, one that had created this whole messy world, Sebastian hadn't seen any evidence of him. If there was a real god, he had abandoned this world to its own devices and humans and mutants and kings and pretend gods had royally messed it up.

That same god, if he existed, had stuck him here in this world and left him with no escape route. He couldn't even die if he wanted to.

Sebastian tightened his fists in his lap, and glared at the dark image in the glass window.

Maybe it was the fog, but everything felt muffled. It was cool enough for a coat. Wet enough to worry about her sword. And over all, quiet.

Sebastian wasn't talking today. Noel wasn't either. She'd already asked him a lifetime of questions. When he was tired of answering sometimes he offered his fingers to her. She wanted to know everything. Everything from why the Greeks dressed that way to how to drive a stick shift. She wanted to be useful. To be useful, she had to know things.

And after so much running and sword play and weight lifting and snuggling, Noel had a hard time seeing him as just her sword master. Also, she had a hard time seeing him as anything else. There didn't seem to be any words to describe what they had going on. Not in his memory or hers.

Today's walk led them into a church. It felt familiar to Noel. Not this church specifically, but the set up and stained glass... Sebastian took a brooding seat in the back. She would have to ask him what was wrong later.

The memorymancer went up to the front. She touched the holy water and her hands knew the motions even if she wasn't sure what it all meant. Her sword, strapped at her belt, just barely tinked against the stone floor as she knelt on the padded knee rest in front of the mass of candles. Noel lowered her head and folded her hands like the woman next to her.

Now what?

She wasn't happy to hear that Sebastian was living with Noel.

Lori didn't have any legitimate claim to Noel, in fact, at work the woman hadn't seemed to recognize her. At least, she didn't reciprocate Lori's greeting as she usually did. She seemed a lot more… focused and a heel of a lot more armed. The brunette had taken to wearing a sword at work. No doubt that was Sebastian's influence.

On one hand, having Noel keeping up with Sebastian was a bonus. In theory, it meant that Lori could get information on him simply by asking the woman or possibly by sharing a few brainwaves.

On the other hand, it meant that Noel was no longer at Lori's direct disposal. If she was to keep in good faith with the unicorn, she couldn't know Lori was using her. Noel seemed incapable of intentional subterfuge.

So where did that leave Lori? In the Sanctuary using the garage phone to place a call to one Kyle the fanatical fighting motorcyclist.

"Hey? Kyle, right? It's Lori from, uhm, yesterday?" Lori glanced out over the cars in the garage as she spoke. White candy van, a dented yellow Hummer, a couple of two and four door sedans and a plethora of motorcycles. Too bad the tank was spent. "I did some digging and, well, how are you with swords?"

---

Twenty minutes later, Lori was dressed in steel toed combat boots, tight fitting jeans and a gray button up shirt covered by a yellow leather jacket. She even accessorized with her glass and metal beaded necklace and a few solid metal bangles. Just in case. With her hair in a high ponytail she looked more like date material than combat ready.

She fiddled with a camera as she idled in the beat up Hummer at the place where Kyle had told her to wait. If she could get the thing to work, she fully intended to sell some photos to the newspaper to boost Sebastian's infamy.

There was no telling where today might lead. She was actually getting a little excited.

"Do you know how to use a sword?"

It had only been a day since Kyle had met Lori in that most dangerous part of town under the assumption that she was out of place. She didn't fit in down there, where the vile and corrupt resided. Under that assumption, Kyle had approached her, almost tried to fight her actually when her demeanor seemed to back the thought. When they'd parted, Lori had promised she'd find him a much better opponent since she wasn't a fighter at all. He still believed something was off about the woman but the only way for him to learn more would be to go along with it.

So here he was, scarcely a day later, heading off to meet up with her at a place of his choice. Her odd question had caught him by surprise and after a moment of silence to let the question catch up with his brain, he had chuckled and told her the honest truth.

He hadn't a clue. But he could work around that.

As soon as the call had ended, Kyle had went about the task of getting ready. Since meeting Lori the other day and Isabel the day before, after seeing the possible new challenges he knew would be crossing his path, Kyle had opted to make a better outfit for him to wear if the need arose. Not just to hide who he was if he did those random acts of vigilance, but also to give him an extra edge that his powers did not. The outfit was in his closet, hidden behind his other clothes and locked within a cabinet he'd bought himself. It had just been finished the night before...and what better way to test it then in combat first hand.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Twenty minutes later, Kyle was gunning it through the streets of New York, slipping around the traffic whenever possible by way of alley or side street. He made good time at that, the early morning fog being only a slight hindrance to his efforts to meet Lori on time. His body was covered in a black jacket, his legs hidden mostly from sight due to the fog, otherwise people might have questioned the black with silver stripes that covered the sides. On his back was a small backpack that contained the remaining components of his outfit that he couldn't attach right away. And of course, his helmet was firmly on his head.

He spotted lori idling in a beat up Hummer as he approached their meeting point, which prompted him to pass by it lightly and tap the window before he wheeled around to park his bike a short ways away. Smiling under his helmet, he powered down, balanced the bike and hopped off, waving in Lori's direction as he did. And as he approached her vehicle, he cleared his helmet from his head, shaking out his hair along the way and grinned. The prospect of today...well, who wouldn't get a wee bit excited?

A quiet tap and he was there at her window. Lori put the camera in a cup holder so that she wouldn't have to touch it any more than she had to and unlocked the doors (not that the passenger side door was in a good enough shape to really keep fully shut anyway).

"You want to stash your bike in the back or leave it?" There was certainly room in the vehicle if he wanted to. Of course, she wasn't going to help him do it, but she was nice enough to offer up the space.

And when he got in he was… "Are you a vigilante or something?" He was dressed like a freaking power ranger. "Look, whatever. I told you I'd do the research and I did. I have no idea how this is going to go down." If he could find the seatbelt he was free to buckle up, but once all his arms and legs were in and once the door was mostly back in place, Lori was merging back out into traffic.

She took them to brooklyn near the harbor, speeding and cutting through traffic as was necessary. Didn't want to miss their date with the unicorn. "Got a tip that there's a real sick-o in this church punching nuns or something. Supposed to be great with a sword and a mutant so that's like double duty bad news for normal people." Blue eyes flicked over to her own personal power ranger. "Of course, you're not normal."

Oh. Dog walker. Lori swerved to avoid even if by Hull's standard that would have been worth 5 points each puppy and 2 for the walker. In less time than it legally should have taken, the Hummer was grinding to a halt outside of an old church. Lori took a deep breath and let it out in a huff as she let the steering wheel go. She had to keep her cool if she wanted photographs.

The blonde unhooked her own seatbelt and grabbed up the camera. The power button let the lens free and she looped the lanyard connected to it around her neck. The Order Leader was the picture of a wanna be journalist all gussied up for her first story.

"So, have fun, I guess." She snapped a photo of Kyle in the car and the flash went off. Oh blah. Lori fiddled with it as she got out so that maybe it wouldn't do that next time.

As Kyle rolled up beside Lori's beat up old Hummer, he was about to lower the kickstand on his bike when Lori asked him from the vehicle what he wanted to do about his bike. In honest surprise, he froze and gave her a quick look, then bounced his head back and forth between the back of her Hummer and the sidewalk. The thought to bring the bike with them had never occurred to him and now that the offer was on the table.....

He gave her a quick nod towards the back of the Hummer, signalling his intent to store it there. After a moment, the bike was stashed and locked down to avoid bouncing about in the back of the Hummer and Kyle was seated firmly in the passenger seat. He smiled warmly as he did, then barely kept his laughter to a minimum when she asked him the question about being a vilgiante. "Ah, my secret has been discovered. Alas, I'll have to give up this life of fighting crime!" Shaking his head, he snickered slightly before adjusting himself in the seat.

"Nah, this...outfit has a purpose. I'll explain it later...suffice to say, it'll come in handy for whatever kind of opponent you have lined up for me. Hopefully. As for your efforts, I thank you great for them and no matter how this goes down, that fact will stand."

For the rest of the trip, they rode in silence for the most part. He merely nodded to her words about who'd they be going to encounter, though his mind was more focused on getting ready overall for this battle. Lori focused on driving the rather cumbersome vehicle, Kyle content on something within the pack he'd brought. He spent almost the entire trip digging around inside it and only when they were about five minutes from their destination did he turn his attention to something else. In this case, it was his helmet. Flipping it so that the open bottom was before him, he reached inside and seemed to fiddle with something inside the helmet. As luck would have it, Lori chose that moment to serve the vehicle to avoid something on the street. It both caught Kyle by surprise and yet also covered up the sound of a mechanic clicking from within the helmet.

The Hummer finally grinded to a halt in front of an old church, its wheels crunching against the road beneath. Tilting his head up from his task to the church, then back to Lori, he quirked an quizzical eyebrow at the location. But before he could even ask any questions, Lori snapped a camera up and he heard the distinct click of a picture being taken. Not that he needed that click to know, what with the bright flash of light that temporarily blinded him. For a moment after, his vision was filled with white spots and he shook his head quickly to remove them. Once they did, he chuckled and stepped out of the vehicle, tossing his pack onto the ground.

"Yeesh, give a guy some warning before you do that next time. Besides, if you wanted to take a picture, should have waited a moment....because if you laugh in the next few moments, I will completely find it not your fault." And with that, he reached into his bag to retrieve the other components of his outfit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

About five minutes later, he pushed open the church's doors and stepped inside. The final adjustments to his suit flickered in and out of focus as he walked through dim lights, but that would be enough to show that he wore boots that had a protrusion that extended up almost to his knees. His forearms were now sporting gauntlets, each with what looked like a curved blade attached to each. No longer did he wear his jacket over the rest of the flexible suit beneath, its purple, black and silver color shining in the occasional light. His bike helmet was under his arm for the moment but as he approached movement in the church, he placed it firmly over his head and made sure it was secure there.

Taking a deep breath, he called out into the church to gain the attention of those present. "Knock knock! Might there be some folks here who are causing some trouble and require a tiny lesson in manners?"

A sword and a mutant? This was definably going to be fun.

The minister had just finished sharing some touching personal story to which Sebastian hadn't really been paying attention, and was winding up to start the main message of his serman, when a gust of wind caught the door that someone had opened (quite a bit after the 'fashionably late' time frame) and slammed it shut again.

The minister stared, which in turn caused several other pairs of eyes in the congregation to turn and look at the person causing the commotion. Streaks of black and red hair disappeared under a motorcycle helmet, except for the long ends that stuck out the bottom in the back. A male voice rang out, asking if there were any trouble makers who needed a lesson in manners.

Only one, thought the unicorn man in the back row, as he stood to get a better view of what was going on. For a moment, he could have sworn that it was a male version of Syn standing there.

Several others in the congregation also stood. In this part of town, if someone strange bursts into a church mid service, it was sometimes best to head for the exits. Sensing trouble, this is what several people did. The guy did have knives strapped to his arms, after all. Sebastian stood his ground, his hand hovering on the hilt of his sword, but waiting to see what happened before he took action.

The minister cleared his throat.

“Ah. Ahem. Welcome. Today's lesson is actually about repentance, not manners. If you'd like to take a seat?” He held out his hand to indicate an open pew. There had been a lot of vacancies before the man had barged in. There were more now.

The lady finally got up from her knees when there was a loudmouth who banged into the church. Good thing too, Noel's knees were getting seriously sore. The two women had glanced back and forth, Noel to make sure she was doing it right and the woman... to what? Outlast Noel? Maybe she didn't know what she was doing either.

A good portion of the people seemed to take this as their exit cue. Noel put her hand at the hilt of her sword and stepped up between the pillars so that she could see what Sebastian was doing. He, like her, seemed ready. A few of the extremely faithful kept their seats.

And the priest seemed so inviting... wouldn't the troublemaker sit down?

"Maybe we missed our chance?" Lori whispered to Kyle's back as if talking too loud in a church might invite some wrath from heaven. Of course... when she glanced around the power ranger, there Sebastian was. Perfectly still as a statue. She had her camera ready and stepped off to the side to snap a photo of the unicorn. This time with no flash.

"That one's got a sword." She whispered helpfully to the power ranger before slipping out of danger range. Of course, she hadn't noticed Noel there between the pillars, also with a sword.

"Excuse me. Pardon." She tried to limit her politeness to instances like this where she didn't really mean it. Lori waded upstream through the people who were streaming out the open doors. There would probably be a better view from up front.

Yep. This was gonna be good.

The silence that followed his entrance into the church was not unexpected, but the amount of time that the silence persisted caught him by surprise. In this kind if situation, where a strange man in a helmet suddenly burst into a church and loudly interrupted the proceedings, you would have expected there to be some angry protests to the action. Not like he burst into the church, he'd entered politely enough, but he could have announced his presence a little more subtlety. Oh well.

Several of the people standing up to his presence was the biggest reaction he saw to his arrival. That and the fact that a good portion of those people made a beeline towards the nearest exits, trying not to rush in order to avoid drawing attention to themselves. Not that it would have mattered if they crawled, jumped, bolted or danced their way out of the place. Kyle's attention was fixed sorely on the man who'd risen up from the first row in front of Kyle.

The man had white hair, a dignified aura around him, and a piercing gaze that would likely make a weaker man cringe. But those weren't the two key features that Kyle was focused on; the first was a long horn protruding from his forehead while the other was obviously a sword strapped to his waist. Kyle may not have been a genius, but it didn't take a crack detective to guess that this man was the one Lori was directing him to fight. Interesting, to say the least. Very interesting.

Kyle ignored the minister at first, focusing his attention on the man entirely for a few more seconds before speaking, not turning his helmet away from the man. "My apologies minister. I'll try to take this outside...though I might suggest delaying the service for a little longer." Having said that, he placed his hands on his hips and smiled inside his helmet at the man. He was slightly aware of Lori speaking quickly, then retreating just as quickly away from him and the man, obviously getting out of the possible danger zone. Good; he didn't want to accidentally hurt her...yet.

Tilting his head to the side, he chuckled under his helmet. "I heard a rumor that you're a nun puncher. Whether that's true or not, I can't say, but I really don't care in the long run. A little lady said that you'd be a better opponent for me to fight and I'm curious to see if she's right. Of course, if she'd told me I'd be fighting the gentleman pony, I might have laughed a bit harder."

He circled to the side slightly so that he was standing about halfway up the row now, spreading his stance a bit. "Either way, I came here for a reason. I'd like to take that reason outside but worse comes to worse, I'll help repay any damage that might get done today. Soooo...who am I addressing now that I think of it?" Kyle hadn't noticed the woman with the sword either, thus why he had his back to the main part of the church at the moment, waiting to see how the man responded to his open challenge.

The minister gaped at the two men at the back of the church, one in red and black, the other all white and pale grey. They were really going to fight in the middle of his church service? It looked that way. He cleared his throat once again and shrugged to his parishoners.

“The service today is cancelled. Communion will be served down the street at the Key's Cafe, for any who are interested.” He grabbed the covered tray of tiny wine cups, the plate of wafers, and the offering plate off the alter in a three layer cake of holiness and exited through a side door. Any remaining people in the congregation took it as their cue to leave, too.

Sebastian simply raised one eyebrow at the masked man in front of him as his muffled voice proclaimed his intentions. Then the unicorn relaxed his stance, lowering his hand from the hilt of his weapon. He no longer believed that this supercillious man could really pose a threat.

“You come to challenge someone without knowing his name or anything about him? You demand that he give you his name, when you have neither given yours, nor even bothered to show your face?” It was both rude and arrogant. Perhaps his little lady should have told him to challenge the river and that the most direct route would be to jump off the bridge. His chances of survival might have been higher.

The corner of the unicorn man's mouth twitched upwards in the mockery of a smile.

“Why should I bother?”

The man was wearing boots the likes of which the immortal had only ever seen on hookers and drag queens, a shiny pajama shirt, and knives tied to his elbows. Not to mention the motorcycle helmet that no doubt was intended to protect his pretty face from being smashed. Young, cocky, perhaps gifted with some kind of power to back up his bravado (because elbow knives just weren't going to cut it), but probably no more control over it than he had over his own impulsive behavior.

No, it was unlikely to be a very interesting fight.

“How about this? You fight my apprentice. If you can best her, then I'll fight you.” Sebastian held out his hand to invite Noel to step forward from her hiding place.

Noel smiled apologetically to the minister and waved after him as he retreated. It really was the best thing for this place to empty out completely. He was a good man to think of his flock first.

Except that it didn't. A little blonde was sitting near the front, twisting around in her pew to get a proper look at what was happening. She looked familiar in the way that some girls do with round and eager faces.

The brunette leaned against her pillar and watched Sebastian handle the man. It seemed like the fight might be called off. The unicorn certainly didn't seem interested.

So of course he offered for Noel to fight him.

She pressed her lips into a tight and disapproving line as she left the shelter of the architecture, hand on sword hilt. "Sebastian." Her tone said what she wouldn't spell out in front of the stranger. Why are you making me take out the garbage?

Lori wasn't happy at the evacuation. She was a million times more conspicuous as the only bystander that didn't leave. Honestly, if she didn't have a mutant power to back her up, she would have left too.

Sebastian had a sword and it was a good look for him. It didn't scream menace, but maybe it would have if she didn't keep thinking of him as the gentle healer.

Noel... well, Lori didn't know what to think of the ex-agent now that she had somehow become the apprentice of the man that she wanted to become the enemy of all. Did that make her something like the enemy princess? Heir to the evil throne?

She wouldn't last five minutes.

The Order Leader checked her camera again when the three combatants came together. Somebody had better start stabbing someone else so she could get her photos. This was getting boring.

Watching from within his helmet, Kyle carefully eyed the minister and the remaining patrons as they left the church, counting off the seconds as he waited for the last of them to flee into the streets. It didn't take them long to file out in an orderly fashion and as the last person vanished beyond his sight, Kyle breathed a sigh of relief. This battle may have been something he wished for, but never at the cost of innocent people getting hurt in the crossfire. Now he could go all out without worry or regret.

It also allowed him to focus his full attention on the man before him. Oddly enough, after Kyle had declared his intentions, the man's stance seemed to relax itself. True, his hand was on the hilt of his sword, but aside from that, the intent to battle was not in this man's form at all. Did he not take his request seriously? Well, he'd have to change that perspective now, wouldn't he?

When the man finally spoke, Kyle could almost taste the way his tone suggested he looked down upon him. Not much of a stretch really, it was something Kyle had run across several times before, usually when his attempt to fight was done in this manner. It still annoyed him greatly, no doubt, but it was something he could work around easily enough. When the man finally stopped speaking, Kyle shrugged his shoulders and relaxed his stance slightly.

"I heard enough to know your worth the effort. As for anything else, I find I learn most of that through direct contact better. And I never "demanded" your name, I asked for it. But if your going to play that card, you can call me Forte. As for my face, well....."

He lingered on that for a moment, pondering whether or not to trigger the helmet's unique feature. He had intended to trigger it once the fight was going to start but now, seeing as how that might take a little work on his part, activating it now might not be a bad idea. In fact, his body was already moving to click the switch inside his helmet when the man asked why he should bother. That froze Kyle for a moment and through it didn't show on the outside, his energy rippled through his body as Kyle stared channeling it. This was the man Lori wanted me to fight? So far, he's not living up to what she told me about him. Then again, I expected her to be lying about something.

Before he could answer, the man offered someone else to fight in his stead, with the promise that if Kyle could beat that person, then he would fight him. Beneath his helmet, Kyle lifted an eyebrow at this request, then turned his head slightly to look at the person the man was signalling. He barely suppressed a surprised gasp when his foe appeared in all her stunning glory. He was staring at a beautiful woman, all seriousness in her voice and expression, her hand also on the hilt of a sword. Lori has said nothing off her, so either she kept that fact from him or honestly didn't know. Either way, this turn of events, while somewhat troubling, were nothing too strange for him to reconsider. Was he an idiot? Sometimes he was...but he knew just how far he could dare to risk.

"Well well....a most interesting proposal. I have to get past the apprentice to get to the master is it? I have no qualms about that; I accept your offer.

As I've told your teacher already, you may call me Forte. I won't disrespect you by saying I'll end this quick or that this won't even make me break a sweat. I'll just fight you with all I've got, warrior to warrior. Now, with that said....have at you."

Without giving away anything, Kyle suddenly shot forward towards the woman, clicking the switch within his helmet. The sound of gears whirling filled the empty room suddenly and his helmet, which was a normal bikers helmet till now, changed before everyone's eyes. Parts shifted and clicked into new places; the front area covering the mouth slid back into the helmet's sides, leaving only a thin layer of fabric covering to just under his eyes. The sides of the helmet rolled around so that long "fins" were able to slide out to either side of his head. The forehead portion slid back slightly to reveal a metal plate with a single diamond shaped ornament in the center. Finally, the visor slid apart into the sides to reveal his emerald colored eyes, a mixture of serious and amusement glittering in them.

He came in quickly and controlled, then brought his right arm around in a short swing with the blade portion directed towards the woman. If she was worth any time, then she would be able to counter it. If not, well, he'd get his second fight a lot faster. "And pleased to make your acquaintance. I do hope I'll get a name in return before this duel ends."

The way she said his name made it seem like she might resent slightly the fact that her master had delegated the task of teaching this intruder a lesson. He gave her half a smile across the church. She was the apprentice, she had to prove herself, too. She couldn't only fight him all the time.

As Forte announced his name and lunged himself toward Noel, Sebastian watched with mild interest when his helmet sprouted wings on top. Really, the things people did for fashion these days. He hoped Noel kept in mind that the guy could have other surprises in store that weren't merely cosmetic ones.

The unicorn man backed out of the long pew he was in and wandered toward the front. Really, the best view would be up near the front, where the lone blonde woman sat with her camera. It was almost as if she had come to the church expecting something exciting and photo-worthy to happen.

The unicorn man slid into the seat next to her. Now that he was up close, he remembered where it was he had seen her before. At a family dinner at the Sanctuary right as he was moving out.

“Lori, isn't it?”